3 Design Thinking Resources You Should Know About

When it comes to Design Thinking, there are unlimited free resources online to help you delve in. Besides running freshtrax (this blog), btrax also runs quarterly design thinking workshops as part of our Innovation Program service for Japanese corporation executives to refresh their creative processes.

Since we are constantly teaching beginners how to use the Design Thinking process to improve their ideas and innovate within their companies, I asked the leader of the program to show me a few different tools and resources he finds helpful. Below is a summary of his recommendations!

1. Stanford’s Virtual Crash Course in Design Thinking

Are you a beginner at Design Thinking or trying to get someone up to speed with the methodology? Just watch Stanford’s free 90-minute crash course on Design Thinking! The format also allows for team leaders in any company to teach their team Design Thinking by running their own workshop as a facilitator.

2. Service Design Tools

Service Design Tools is a collection of communication tools helpful when designing a new service within a company. The resources detail specific tools you can use when designing a new service, such as a “Task Analysis Grid” or a “Storyboard.” These tool descriptions come with case studies that help you understand how to apply them to your particular situation. When combined with design thinking, your new business service can be a highly creative solution to the problem you identified.

Post-it notes need no introduction. Hailed as one of the best inventions for keeping tabs on reminders and tasks, another common use today is ideation during brainstorm sessions, where everyone can contribute an idea on a post-it. The small size of a post-it makes users limit how much they can write, which forces you to boil an idea down to its essence.

On the other hand, the ButterflyBoard is a portable whiteboard that is a great addition to any brainstorm session. Use it alongside post-it notes and you get a flexible canvas for drawing out ideas and collaborating in a team. You can see this in action in the photo above, where a team is conducting a brainstorm session using a mix of post-it notes and ButterflyBoards.

With a combination of ButterflyBoard and post-it notes, the ideas don’t end when you leave the brainstorm session. While post-it notes are disposable and difficult to preserve, ideas written on ButterflyBoard can be taken with you after the session and you can continue to add to it any time, anywhere.

Kristie is a third culture kid from Australia, Hong Kong and San Francisco. Formerly a contributor to freshtrax, she is a lover of social technology and pop culture, and always excited for a good brand story.